Heritage and Heart

Dr Desiree Ibinarriaga and Dr Jessica Neath from Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous research lab at Monash University have visited the Museum der Kulturen Basel (MKB). Desiree Ibinarriaga is an Indigenous Mexican woman with Chamula (Mayan), Nahua (Aztec), Euskaldunak (Basque) and Spanish heritage. She is a designer and is currently leading research about decolonising and Indigenising design in her role as Senior Lecturer at Monash Art Design and Architecture. Jessica Neath is a non-Indigenous Australian art historian who supports Indigenous-led creative practice research in her role as Research Fellow at Wominjeka Djeembana.

Both reflect on their time in Basel and visiting the Museum, the importance of visiting cultural subjects in the collections and connecting with ancestral designs:

Jessica Neath (JN): We are here to talk about our research in the MKB. Why did we want to go to the museum, what was our purpose?

Desiree Ibinarriaga (DHI): I think the purpose was to meet with curators and others in the museum. It was important to visit the collections, but also to build these relationships. For me, building relationships is the base of all research and practice. I think it was important to grow the relationships that our colleagues Brian Martin, Brad Webb, N’Arweet Carolyn Briggs and Kimberley Moulton had established.

JN: Yes, our colleagues in Wominjeka Djeembana first visited MKB in 2022. They have connected with some really important cultural subjects in the collections from southeast Australia, the carved tree, the thulu from Kamilaroi Country and also there's an important canoe in the collections from Brad’s Country in Kempsey, Dunghutti Country.
For me it was incredibly important to visit these cultural subjects which I have been researching since 2021 as part of the project “More than a guulany (tree): Aboriginal knowledge systems” under leadership of Brian Martin and Brook Andrew. To be there in person and see the thulu and how it has led the museum’s exhibition “Alive: More than human worlds”, was so important because it's hard to understand the significance of that exhibition and the role of the thulu when you’re in Australia looking at photographs or reading books.

DHI: For me it was really interesting to understand how the collections at MKB work and also to visit the collections where they are stored. I found one of the gods from my culture, Chicomecoatl, the goddess of agriculture and of corn. It was very important to me because I come from the people of the corn. I was more familiar with the god of corn Centéotl who is a man. Chicomecoatl (7 serpent) is a goddess, a woman and that is important to me as my family matriarchs are my foundation. It was like she was talking to me, she wanted to be awakened, that was a very special moment for me. To understand my roots, my heritage, and my culture through her. We have a legend that we are people of the corn as we come from the flesh of the corn. There are different types of corn and colours as there are diverse races and cultures.

JN: Had you come across her story before?

DHI: No, that was the first time and it was a really special moment because I got to know her not through reading but through an experience of approaching her, talking to her, touching her to understand this embodied connection.

JN: And you also understood what she was wearing and holding

DHI: Yes, but I don’t know everything that is represented.

JN: But you recognized her straight away. You may not have known her name, but you recognized her as an ancestor.

DHI: Yes. I knew she was real. There were other materials shown to me in the collections and I knew straight away that these were fake or I did not feel the connection. The collections were all really mixed. There were ancestors, cultural subjects, cultural materials and also objects I consider to be fake, perhaps they are souvenirs for tourists.

JN: In your research now there seems to be a focus on fertility, new growth and connection.

DHI: Yes, many different designs from the Aztec and Mayan or in Xochimilco, where I come from, are about fertility. In Xochimilco there is the chinampas, which is a system of land and water canals. Its design is based on the conditions of the pregnant women, the darkness inside the womb is the darkness of the soil, the heat from the warmth of the sun is like the warmth of the pregnant body and the water is like the amniotic fluid. Here we grow foods and flowers (Xochitl).
Many of ancestral designs are inspired by women. In the cosmology Mother Earth (Tonantsintlalli) is like a womb, she holds all the knowledge. I would love to share and connect with other Indigenous peoples to share our culture, ancestors and converse all together through our creative practice in connection to the cultural subjects and objects, that would be fantastic.

JN: What do you think you learned from her story and these moments?

DHI:  The importance of women in my culture. You always hear about the Mayan gods as men, but we need to recognize that there are women as well. Women hold a big part in growing the food, in getting the seeds from one place to another, in barter in trading. Markets in Mexico were and are important, to trade seeds.
Within cosmology of the Milpa, this is a space where you put different kind of foods together to grow together and feed each other. Of course, you have corn but then you also have beans, tomato, calabaza (zucchini), chilli and wild herbs. Everything is feeding each other, it is all based on connection, the relationality between the plants, the animals, the wind, the water etc. And the importance of the relationships between the underworld and upperworld with mother earth. The importance of the Milpa is that all year round, in every season, there is food and there are different kinds of dishes depending on the season. The corn you can eat it fresh, you cut and dry it, or you can cut the top and bottom off and keep it for replanting.

JN: Was this story of connection, of different entities working together, also communicated to you by Chicomecoatl?

DHI: Yes, she had the flowers in her hair, and baskets to hold the corn. Chicomecoatl means seven snakes. The number seven is very important in my culture, in Nahua culture, it is associated with the carrying of the seeds of the corn. How a seed sprouts in earth, how it is fertilised, how women travelled in groups of seven each holding a different seed to make sure the seeds were distributed. Number seven is related to fertility.

JN: I remember when you showed me her in the collections and we also turned her over.

DHI: Yes, and she had more flowers on the underside. And we could see the detail of her dress, the Huipil.

JN: I want to ask you about memory because that's something that often comes up in my research with Indigenous artists and knowledge holders. You mention that you didn’t know her before you met her in the collections, that this was the first meeting. However, there is a feeling of familiarity in this meeting.

DHI: Yes. It is like a feeling a being really comfortable, like a sister.